Like his legal-software provider company, founder, CEO has matured and is on firm footing

Sitting in the library of Harper High School in West Englewood, Andrew Sieja waited to address a small audience gathered for the unveiling of new computers throughout the building.

Volunteers from his company, legal-software provider kCura, had worked with Harper students to install 275 new and refurbished computers, as well as to convert a former teachers lounge into a college resource center with PCs for researching and applying to schools.

Sieja had prepared some brief remarks, but inspiration hit while he was waiting his turn. Setting aside his notes, Sieja spoke of how in 2010, when his company started donating money every month to causes championed by employees, the philanthropic efforts planted a seed at kCura that grew into a program to outfit one Chicago school each year with computer labs. His larger vision, he said, was to craft a playbook for other local technology firms to conduct similar programs around the city and mentor new generations of technology workers.

Sieja helped cut a ceremonial ribbon of red and white crepe paper, then toured a classroom and the new college room, which sports bright red walls and couches reminiscent of a dorm lounge. He looked more youthful than his 36 years as he joked with students and posed for photos while wearing the red Harper baseball cap he received as a thank-you present.

This is classic Andrew Sieja: gregarious and energetic, with a knack for spontaneity. He winged it through an adolescence as the loner programmer kid and a young adulthood as the head of a small software consulting firm that came precariously close to going broke. But Sieja and kCura have matured; he is less emotional and more deliberate, with a multiyear plan for his rapidly growing company to expand its software platform from legal-document management to all stages of electronic discovery.

"I think about how we make decisions today," Sieja said. "It's not as fast and fluid, I'll tell you that. There's definitely a lot more people involved. I think there's a balance between just doing it and trying to be very careful too."

Privately held kCura doesn't disclose revenues. Its flagship product, Relativity, has more than 75,000 active users worldwide, with that number having grown 40 percent in 2012. The company's 270 employees recently moved to new, larger office space on South LaSalle Street, and it plans to hire 70 to 80 people this year.

The constant throughout kCura's evolution is Sieja's drive. He lined up customers for Relativity by tirelessly pitching the software at legal-industry trade shows he crashed when he couldn't afford a badge, and he won clients' loyalty by responding promptly to questions and taking their feedback to heart.

"It's strange, looking back on it — never did I feel that as a company we wouldn't be able to do what we promised to do," said Keith Kaminski, a kCura software architect and member of the early team that persisted through the company's leanest period of 80-hour weeks and middle-of-the-night troubleshooting sessions. "Andrew, even today, (is) very charismatic and very confident, and that rubs off on everyone around him. He definitely believes in himself and what he can do, and by extension he makes us believe we can get it done."

It's about time

Punctuality and meeting deadlines are important to Sieja (pronounced SAY-ja), who has all 48 clocks at kCura's offices synced with an atomic source. He also has set the display on his smartphone to say "Don't be lazy!" when the alarm goes off.

Sieja learned how to work on deadline as an employee at Lante Corp., an Internet consulting firm where he was part of a group that had to quickly set up networks and computer workstations at large conferences hosted by companies such as Microsoft and Gartner.

In 2001, Sieja and two Lante co-workers, Steve Ankenbrandt and Mike Decker, formed their own consultancy, building software and taking on technology projects for clients such as Accenture and financial services firms. They named the firm kCura, the "k" standing for "knowledge" and "cura" meaning "management" in Latin.

Decker described Sieja as "just an incredibly sharp technologist," with an enthusiasm that inspired him to drop his plans to attend business school and join kCura instead. Sieja is a self-taught programmer, having gravitated toward coding as a shy teenager who had a hard time making friends because he moved around so much, attending seven grade schools and five high schools.

The kCura partnership lasted two years, after which Sieja bought out his co-founders' stakes and essentially restarted the company.

"We were just young guys, and I think we all had different ideas of what we wanted from the business," Sieja said. "I wanted more of a lifestyle business — like I wanted to work on the products I wanted to work on, I wanted to set my own schedule. … I enjoyed being able to come to work at noon. And I wanted to take money out," instead of reinvesting profits in the company.